Chattisgarh State Electricity Regulatory Commission (CSERC) has released a draft on 18th July 2014 for the determination of preferential tariff for Renewable Sources of Energy. The commission has invited comments and suggestions latest by 12th August 2014 and a public hearing will be held for the same on 22nd August 2014.

The details of the proposed tariff are highlighted in the table below:

The tariff proposed by the CSERC is in line with the tariff determined by CERC (Refer). CSERC has reduced the solar tariff compared to previous years, whereas there is slight increase in tariffs of other RE sources.

Punjab State Electricity Regulatory Commission (PSERC) has released a draft for determination of tariff for Renewable Energy sources on 11th July 2014. PSERC has Invited comments and suggestions by 6th Aug 2014.

The graph below shows a comparison between tariff’s of CERC and PSERC over last three years (note that the tariff of PSERC for FY 14-15 is proposed and not approved).

It is evident from above that the tariff of PSERC over the period is same as the tariff determined by CERC. So it can be presumed that the final tariff of PSERC for FY 14-15 could be same as tariff determined by CERC. It is worth noting that the tariffs for Wind and Hydro have been marginally increasing over the last 3 years, which is contrary to the trend for Solar.

Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC), through its order on 04th July 2014, has amended the KERC (Terms and Conditions for Open Access) Regulation, 2014 and has computed the wheeling and Banking charges for Renewable energy generators.

The commission issued a discussion paper on 11th June 2014, and invited comments and suggestion from stakeholders. On 25.06.2014, the commission held a public hearing during which many RE generators requested the commission to either maintain the W&B charges at the current level or to reduce it, stating the reasons that Karnataka is an energy deficit state and RE power being distributed power, will reduce the need for additional transmission network.

In the view of the above, the commission’s final order is as follows:

The wheeling charges shall continue to be 5% of the injected energy for Wind, Mini Hydro, Biomass and Bagasse Cogeneration plants.

The banking charges shall continue to be 2% the injected energy and is applicable for Wind and Mini Hydro projects only.

W&B charges and CSS shall continue to be exempted for Solar projects till 31st March 2018, under Non-REC mode.

The banked energy at the end of the financial year shall be purchased by distribution licensee at 85% of the generic tariff determined by the commission in its latest order.

The commission has also decided to discontinue the additional UI charges payable between the time of Injection and time of Drawal, for both existing as well as the new projects availing the banking facility.

The normative wheeling and banking charges applicable for Non-RE generators, will also be applicable for Captive RE generators availing REC’s.

The charges shall be applicable to the above mentioned renewable energy projects commissioned on or before 31.03.2014, and shall be valid for a period of 10 years from the date of commissioning of projects or units.

On requests of solar generators, to extend the period of applicability beyond 2018, the commission has issued a discussion paper in this regard, and has invited comments till 22nd July 2014.

Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC), through an order on 7th July 2014, has finalized the Renewable Energy tariff for FY 2014-15. The details of the Renewable Energy tariffs computed for FY 2014-15 have been highlighted below:

From the table, it is clearly evident that the tariff calculated for Solar Projects is higher as compared to that proposed in the draft. The price which has been finalized at Rs. 6.79 per unit is approximately 10.7% higher than Rs. 6.13 per unit, as proposed in the draft.

Earlier, CERC in its order (Refer) had finalized higher tariff for Solar Projects, based on the discussions during hearings about raising the normative capital cost of Solar PV power projects. MERC final order followed similar escalation after the hearings.